


Major Distractions

by sugarspuncoeurls



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Female Character of Color, Fluff, Masturbation, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 19:05:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5638405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugarspuncoeurls/pseuds/sugarspuncoeurls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Major looks older. Older and good. Older and distractingly good. And since she can’t focus on the ‘good’ part without turning to so much mush, she focuses on the ‘older’ part. It’s an obvious thing, a pretty ‘duh’ thing...</p><p>And it's really not working.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Major Distractions

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: First fic of the new year, and it's smut. I'm kinda proud of myself. Please enjoy, cheesy title and all.

_He’s older._

That’s what popped into her head first and foremost when she saw him again, newly freed from her prison and ready to tell the (R.I.P) Defense Committee exactly what they _didn’t_ want to hear. It makes sense; two years plus another six months will change anybody physically, ‘cept maybe her, and that’s only because she’s chock-full of melanin and was, oh yeah, _dead_ for most of that time. It was a surprise, though, how much that time showed on him. Really hit it home how long it’d been since they were up close and personal. He looked…different, distinguished even, like he should’ve been in some sleek, fancy office giving orders, like Hackett, rather than out on the front lines dodging enemy bullets and the occasional friendly fire. She noticed – and noted – the extra lines in his face, the added bulk to his frame, the fine spritz of pepper hair on his ever-perfect coif. Like a second puberty or something, she thought, only to seriously consider it while watching him move about at the Archives. Do biotics get a second puberty, some overnight thing that lets them blossom into something bigger, stronger, better? If so, the Major’s a perfect example. Go to sleep full of potential. Wake up with that potential fully, _beautifully_ realized.

Her point is, he looks older. Older and good. Older and distractingly good. And since she can’t focus on the ‘good’ part without turning to so much mush, she focuses on the ‘older’ part. It’s an obvious thing, a pretty ‘duh’ thing, but it keeps her preoccupied enough to ignore the subtle sway of his ass when he walks. Mostly.

Thing is, she doesn’t think it’s working so much these days, probably because of their little talk at Apollo’s. It was nice, clearing the air, to sit with him and talk and not feel that weight, that tension. It was nice to get to _know_ him again, ‘cuz she’s pretty sure they’re both more than a little different now. Time, along with making folks look older, does that kinda thing, experience does it even better, and they’ve both had a lot of both; time apart, _experience_ apart. She saw it in the solid set of his shoulders, the lift of his chin, in the way he walked and talked and carried himself. Time and experience had given him a surety he’d lacked on the SR-1, that she hadn’t got more than a glimpse of on Horizon. Sitting across from him at that tiny table, close enough to see the sinews in his arms and the grey at his temples and his eyes shining with an unwavering, undeniable confidence, front and center and unapologetically in her _face_ …was something. Distracting.

Made her proud, for some reason. Also made her want to leap across that table, settle herself in his lap, and ride him like a M-35 Mako over a mountain ridge. She embraced the first feeling, and drowned the second in two glasses of raspberry water. Not alcohol. She’s a happy, horny drunk. Alcohol would’ve made it worse.

She thinks he knew, though. Thinks he _knows_. And now, settled safe in the _Normandy_ with him as their newest crew member, she doesn’t think he’s trying all that hard to stop it.

“Are you alright, Shepard?” She snaps out of her daze at the sound of Liara’s soft call, her fingers tightening on the armored gauntlet in her hands as it threatens to tumble out of them. She looks up into her friend’s smiling face, her brow lifted in curiosity, and blinks.

“Yeah.” She shakes her head, takes one hand and bops it lightly to her temple. “Yeah,” she says again, louder, “I’m good. Sorry.”

“I was just checking. You seemed distracted.”

“Yeah.” She blows out a breath, keeps her eyes on the shuttle bay’s modding table and resists the urge to lift them. “For a second.”

“By Kaidan?”

Well, shit, is it that obvious? “What makes you think that?” she asks, trying for confusion.

Liara’s smile widens, her eyes going where Shepard’s want to. “You were staring.”

Well, _shit_ , it _is_ that obvious. “Just checking his form,” she replies. She grins. “Make sure he doesn’t overdo himself. Creaky bones and all.”

Liara tilts her head. “The Major seems to be in even better shape now than he was during our hunt for Saren, despite his being older.” Her brows furrow with worry. “Are the injuries he sustained on Mars still bothering him?”

 _Damn it._ “No, he’s fine, Liara. It was a joke.” At her lingering doubt, Shepard makes a gesture with the gauntlet to the Kodiak, where the man in question stands chatting with Steve and Garrus. “The gray hair, the lines in his face? Sure, those’re signs of… _advanced_ age in humans, but a lot of folks get them early, like Kaidan. I was just poking a bit of fun at ‘em.” She looks down again when Kaidan bends at the waist, clearing her throat as he points out something near the shuttle’s thrusters. “The Major’s in great shape, trust me.”

“Well, I suppose you would know.” Here, Liara’s expression changes again, back to her knowing smile.

“What do you mean?”

“I saw you both at Apollo’s. Your interaction seemed…successful, if my eyes are to be believed.”

Shepard makes another cursory glance to the trio some meters away. _Still nerding out. Good._ “Uh, yeah, it was. Got a lot of stuff cleared away, y’know? We’re good.” Still _feels_ good to say that, too.

“So…the status of your relationship…” Liara lifts her painted-on eyebrows. Shepard remembers when she first got them, recalls grinning just a little when the asari told her it was inspired by her time with the crew. She’s taken to calling it a “human-ism,” not the dead philosophy but the phenomenon that apparently happens when a non-human spends a lot of time _with_ humans and consequently takes on some of their quirks. Garrus and Tali have them, too, though theirs are more about gestures and less about cosmetics. Still, she likes them, kind of wonders if they’ll catch on. Reapers notwithstanding, the galaxy might be full of a bunch of eyebrow-having asari soon. But back to her friend.

“We’re buddies,” she answers. “We figure a fresh start is what’s best. We’ve all been through a lot, y’know? We’re different. Going back to something that happened in another life doesn’t seem all that smart a thing to do.” Especially since that something was hardly off the ground before it was shot down as effectively as the SR-1. They hadn’t loved each other then. Could have, given a few more months, a few less demons, but they hadn’t. _Can’t salvage from something that was hardly anything to begin with._ And Mr. Alenko had agreed.

“Oh,” Liara says, and the genuine surprise on her face and in her voice, however much she tries to hide it, makes Shepard grin.

“Yeah,” she replies, her attention going back to the armor in her hands. “No secret kisses in dark corners, no quickies in the elevator, no sneaking up to the loft for a booty call during skeleton hours.” _No fun times for me, in other words._ She snickers. It’s looking like that single kiss from Thane will have to tide her over for a while yet. If she had known that, maybe she could’ve kept herself from passing out so quick when it happened.

“Oh,” Liara says again. She thinks she’s confused her again with the slang. They’ll have to have another lesson. She seems to get the gist, though, since she ultimately smiles. “Well, that sounds nice. I’ve enjoyed having Kaidan back aboard. The ship feels a little more familiar with him around, a little more like home. Even if the décor is different.”

Shepard nods. “We can agree on that.” And not just in regards to Kaidan. Those brief days with Wrex and Mordin ( _miss you, science man_ ) aboard, the mission with Grunt, seeing Jack and Jacob and checking in with Miranda; all those little moments made her feel like her world was a little more stable, a little more whole, however much the Reapers were determined to spin it out of orbit and laser it to ashy bits.

The Major finding his way back here is little _more_ stability, she thinks. One more tether to the harness she’s using to stay connected to the ship of her life, corny as that sounds.

“Shepard.” Liara, her voice tickled with amusement.

 ** _Shit_.** She’s gotta be less obvious with her ogles. She looks down. “Got it. Thanks.”

Liara gives her a look of sympathy. “Are you sure it’s the path you want? This ‘fresh start’ you’ve both agreed to?”

“I’m sure.” She means it. It’s not the easiest thing to do, having him around, close enough to see and hear and touch, but it’s a whole lot better than _not_ having him around. She chuckles. “Him being here and us okay is lot more important than me getting some.” And she wants some. God, does she. She looks to Liara. “Don’t worry about me, Miss Lili. All my pent-up sexual energy is just ammo for my guns. The Reapers and Cerberus won’t know what hit ‘em.”

Liara laughs, at her jest, at the nickname, at the fact that she’s only half joking. Hell, it’s worked. Nothing like an unsatisfied libido to charge up that adrenaline rush and get her going strong. She laughs, too, though, because it is kinda funny. When the nerds look over, she catches Kaidan’s eye and lifts a hand in a wave, her gut going tellingly warm when he returns the gesture with his own smile. Distracting.

Nope, not the easiest thing at all. The bad guys aren’t gonna stand a _chance_.

* * *

She’s burning. Should’ve went with a colder shower. The near-scalding temp of the water is only exacerbated by the heat she’s building between her legs. _Shit, shit_ , “shit,” she whispers, and knocks her forehead against the shower wall to keep the groan rising in her throat from making itself known.

Ironic. Noisy as she is, and it’s when no one’s around to hear her that she wants to be quiet. It’s probably because of the not-so-guilt she’s feeling as she grinds down on her own hand, her slick mixing with the shower water as it coats her fingers and sluices down her legs. Commander Shepard, Citadel Savior and Collector Ass-Kicker, currently unavailable as she jacks off to the mental image of her former Staff Lieutenant. For the who-knows-how-many damned time.

Shepard knocks her head against the wall again, her hand grabbing for her breast. She pinches a dark nipple between thumb and forefinger, rolls it hard enough to hurt, and gasps as the hand between her thighs does the same to her clit. She slides to the water-pelted floor, legs opening wide as she goes, and looks down through the clumped curls of hair hanging from her brow to watch herself. _Put on a show_ , she thinks amusedly. It’s easy to imagine her small, slender fingers as larger, lighter, thicker, framing a big palm with just as many calluses as her own. Scars she doesn’t have, too, burns from electrical work, cuts from the naked wires of a device she can’t name ‘cuz that’s _his_ forte, _his_ expertise. _“I’ve got you, Shepard_ , _”_ he says, a casual hand coming down on her armored shoulder, and sooner than she can say, “let me just blow it up,” it’s done.

Her head falls back against the wall, chest heaving as pleasure builds, her eyes half-lidded as she tracks the thick curling wisps of steam about the stall. She doesn’t need to look now. The image’s locked in her head, bright as a vid screen in the dark. The fingers easing into her aren’t her own, and it’s not her palm cupping and rasping rough skin against her clit. It’s not her wet fingers on her breast but a mouth, a tongue, biting, pinching, pulling until her nipples ache, traveling up her collar and neck and over the round jut of her chin to her mouth. _Her_ teeth aren’t sinking into the fat of her lower lip, soothing the sting before biting again. She closes her eyes and his scent fills her nose, metallic eezo and Alliance-issue soap and a subtle cologne that makes her think, _this is what his home must smell like._ He’s kneeling on the floor with her, bare and soaked to the bone, bracketed by her knees, shielding her from the spray, one hand splayed across her back while the other cups and rubs and plunges, fingers twisting with a skill that tells her he _remembers_ , remembers what she liked, what it took to take her to the stars. When she arches back against the wall, he follows, forehead pressing to hers, drooping curls of hair tangling with her own, breath exploding as he takes her mouth, entwines their tongues with a groan she _has to echo._

_"God.”_

_“Shhh.”_ His thrusting fingers twist again, plunge deeper, knuckles grazing her walls until she whines. _“I’ve got you.”_ He breaks away from her mouth to brush a wet kiss over her forehead. _“I’ve got you.”_

She knows. He’s always had her.

The steam is messing with her breathing; gulps of air already difficult to take in are growing impossible between the humidity and his mouth and the _“fuck”_ pulsing deep inside. There’s a buzz in the air, a gentle vibration that somehow reads blue behind her eyelids, and when she eases them open, she sees him, encompassing and overwhelming, musculature and peppered hair and _his_ _eyes_ , clear golden brown, sparking blue, and weighed so heavy with desire and that fickle emotion that’s not quite love, not _yet_ love but could so easily be, just like they were three years ago. It makes her heart shudder to a stop until he kisses her again, and then it revs back to life, fast enough to steal the rest of her breath. Her legs spread desperately wider, her back arches higher, and her hips roll with the movement of that hand, hard, shallow thrusts supported by the palm on her back. “God, god, god, _god_.” A chant that heightens to a cry when those thrusting fingers slide slick from her heat and seek her clit again, stroking with the same driving rhythm.

All the while she imagines him watching her, reading her face, calculating with that brilliant mind of his just what she needs. She doesn’t know what he sees, but in her head, the blue sparking in his eyes suddenly ignites, spreads to outline his form in a sight so familiar and full of promise she whimpers. She reaches back in her memories and pulls those few nights they spent together to the fore, makes herself recall the feel of fingertips lined with dark energy, achingly soft as they grazed her lips, her breasts, her belly, the outside of her thighs and in. Cautious, he was then, half-afraid of himself, of what he might accidentally do if he lost control.

He didn’t. _She_ did, vividly, lost herself to the roiling waves he sent through her core, and in her mind’s eye, he’s doing it again. Dark energy buzzes across her skin, circles her nipples and delves into her navel, concentrates through her folds to focus against her clit. She groans, loud, long, low, and again as he moves, rubbing hard and fast, and she’s thrusting with it, rolling with it, reaching for it, cursing as he puts his lips to her ear.

“I’ve missed you, Neo,” he whispers, and that’s it.

 _"_ _Kaidan!”_ It hits her like a launched missile, merciless, sends her careening near out of her skin, thighs quaking and chest heaving, her lungs sucking in damp air. A hand is still working, guiding her through it, and she shouts at the surge it brings, every muscle clenching tight. Timeless seconds as he holds her, anchors her, as he always has.

When her strength finally leaves she collapses against the shower wall, arms and legs flopping to the soaked floor. Hot water still pelts down, covering her face, adding to the flush felt everywhere, red-tinged and satisfying. She breathes in, out, and puts a hand to her forehead to rake her hair back, eyes closed as the high settles, leaves her wanting a dry bed and sleep. “Shower off,” she mutters, and the voice command heeds her; with a soft rumble of the pipes, the water stops, and she opens her eyes to the sound of its departure down the drain. She watches it dazedly before rising on wobbly legs, smiling to herself as she navigates to the towel rack, her nose still smelling a hint of eezo and cologne.

Distraction at its finest.

* * *

The next day, she prepares to leave the war room when she’s stopped by a familiar call. She looks over her shoulder to see Kaidan coming through the door, a single datapad cradled under his arm. “Hey,” he greets. “Got a minute?”

“Sure.” She steps back, her attention going to the datapad. She points a finger. “For me?” Kaidan nods.

“A message from the Council. An assignment.” He gives her a quick once-over. “Workout?”

“Just got done.” She’s still dressed as such, shivers slightly at the cool ship air that brushes over her bare belly, courtesy of her midriff shirt. “Came up here to check statuses and say hi before a shower.”

Kaidan’s smile widens. “Beat up on the lieutenant again?”

“He asks for it, I swear.”

“I’m sure he does.” He gives her another quick glance before offering a subtle gesture to her side. “That’s new, right?” She looks down, realizes, once again thanks to her top, that one small part of her tattoo is hanging out. She grins.

“For you, yeah.”

“Garrus mentioned it. Got it during your time with Cerberus?”

Hardly a difference to his tone when he says the C-word these days. Nice. “After the suicide mission, yeah. You remember Jack, the one I told you about meeting at Grissom?” He nods. “She did it. A way to commemorate our not dying, and celebrate the fact that she didn’t have to kill me like she thought she would.”

Kaidan blinks. “Definitely sounds like something worth celebrating.” He opens his mouth to continue, then closes it. She smirks.

“You gonna ask about it?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t want to pry.”

 _'_ Course _not._ She turns slightly, splays her hand to cover as much of her left side as she can. Kaidan chuckles.

“Pretty big. What’s it of?”

“N7.” She grins. “Stylized. Jack said it was a nice ‘fuck you’ to my jailers, that ‘a little time behind bars doesn’t change the fact that I saved all their asses’.”

“She’s right.”

She feels her cheeks warm the smallest bit. He’s said as much before, but it still makes her tingle just a little. “Thanks.”

“Just telling the truth.” He steps forward, the datapad outstretched in his hand. She forgot he had it. “I marked the important parts. The rest of it is fluff.”

“Coulda told you that,” she replies, taking it from him. She skims through it, shaking her head at the length. “You read through the whole thing?”

He hasn’t stepped back. “Thought I’d be thorough, just in case.” He tosses another subtle glance at her side, and she lifts her eyebrows, giving them a little waggle.

“It glows, y’know.”

Kaidan raises his own brow. “Really?”

“In the dark, mostly, but yeah.”

“Wow. What color?”

“Hot pink.”

He laughs. “Bet that’s a sight to see.”

“Mm~” She moves her shoulder, up and down, and gives him a look, a tad too flirtatious to be entirely ‘buddy’. She sees him. When the Major wants to be subtle, he _is_ subtle; excels at it, most of the time. The only way she’d catch him sneaking peeks is if he wanted to get caught. And that’s…

 _Jesus_. They have too many moments like this. Whatever time and experience has done to them, the chemistry’s sure still there, loaded like a bullet in the barrel. It’s hard to ignore it when there’s no one around to notice it, no Liara to point it out or Garrus to roll his eyes (his own human-ism). Just them, the chem, the history, and a remembrance of last night’s shower, humming near-renewed between her thighs. Distracting.

Kaidan breaks their silence first. He shifts his stance, and gestures to the datapad in her hand. “You can keep that. If you want, we can go over it tomorrow morning, maybe go ahead and knock it out if we have the time.”

Shepard nods, looking down at the scrolling letters and numbers. She doesn’t see a thing. “Sounds good.”

“Alright.” He seems to hesitate, his stance shifting again, before he finally turns to leave. “Goodnight, Commander.”

“Night, Major.”

When he rounds the corner into the conference room, she pauses for a second herself before following, her weight settling against the circular frame of the war room exit. Just as he prepares to undergo the scan needed to cross into the CIC, she speaks. “Hey. Kaidan.”

He turns back to face her. “Yeah?”

She lifts the datapad in a small wave. “Why don’t we go over this together next time?” She grins. “Promise not to bum rush you while you comb through the details.”

Kaidan chuckles, his teeth flashing bright under the fluorescent lights. “Might take a while, long-winded as Valern is.”

“We’ll come equipped. You bring the steak sandwiches?”

“Only if you bring the raspberry water.”

“Deal.” She almost doesn’t continue, but then, when has she ever been known for tact? “Maybe when we’re done, I’ll show you the tattoo,” she says, shoulders lifted for the sake of nonchalance. “Lower the lights so you can see it glow.”

She waits to see it, and isn’t disappointed when she does. That unwavering _look_ , emphasizing all the ways he’s changed. Older and good. She did a better job imagining it than she thought.

“I’d like that,” Kaidan replies. “Next time.”

“Next time.”

She remains after he steps into the CIC, does another little one of her waves that he returns before the door slides shut and she’s left alone. She pats a hand to her left side and snickers.

She really _is_ obvious.


End file.
